Wine tanks usually are a tall cylindrical structure with a conical top, and supported at the base upon legs or upon a base plinth. The smaller tanks typically have a capacity of about 1200 liters, but the largest tanks may hold up to 580,000 liters. Some of the tanks are up to 20 meters high and up to 10 meters in diameter, although a 6 meter diameter is more common.
Wine tanks typically are made of stainless steel, and the tank walls may include refrigeration coils and one or more layers of insulation.
It will be apparent from the above that wine tanks present the problem of securing a tall, relatively delicate structure, which when full is extremely heavy.
It is known to secure wine tanks using an anchoring bracket of the type shown in FIG. 1: —an open fronted casing 10 with spaced apart parallel sides 11, top plate 12, and bottom plate 13 is welded on to the side of a tank 14, and a screw threaded rod 15 passes through apertures 16, 17 in the top and bottom plates respectively. The lower end 15a of the rod 15 is concreted into the underlying floor 19, to retain the tank in position. A number of these anchoring brackets are located around the perimeter of the tank.
The above described construction has major drawbacks:                if the rod 15 yields, (e.g. as a result of the movement of the tank in an earthquake) then the surrounding floor must be dug up to release the lower end of the rod, so that the damaged rod can be replaced;        if the rod 15 has been stretched, the securing nut 18 will be spaced above the top plate 12, and the rod therefore will not restrain movement of the tank at all, until the tank moves enough to bring the top plate 12 back into contact with the nut 18.        